The tax department’s searches at hospitals run by Yogendra Yadav’s relatives were triggered by a Rs 3.25 lakh cash payment for jewellery bought from a Nirav Modi firm, an income tax department official said hours after the psephologist-turned-politician accused the centre of targeting his family to intimidate him.

Tax department officials later said they had recovered 22 lakh cash during the searches.

They said Mr Yadav’s nephew Gautam Yadav had bought jewellery from the diamantaire’s firm for Rs 6 lakh and paid Rs 3.25 lakh in cash. Tax officials had learnt of the cash transaction from the dossier of information about the group owned by Nirav Modi, the celebrity designer wanted in a $ 2 billion Punjab National Bank fraud case.

Yogendra Yadav later told news agency PTI that “the question is whether this money is unaccounted for? I do not know about the accounts of the hospitals”.